Adrian Rosenfeld, ex-Matthew Marks director, to open SF gallery

Updated 6:11 pm, Wednesday, October 12, 2016

Adrian Rosenfeld, who left a major role at the Matthew Marks Gallery last year, has moved to San Francisco and will open his own space. Called simply Adrian Rosenfeld, the gallery will be at 1150 25th St., next door to the much-anticipated new location of Altman Siegel Gallery. A third space in the same building — which itself is part of the ever-expanding Minnesota Street Project — will house an as-yet-unnamed private collection showcase.

In 1999, Rosenfeld joined New York’s Matthew Marks, where he was a director. One of the most influential galleries internationally, Matthew Marks represents such top figures as Jasper Johns, Nan Goldin, Ellsworth Kelly and Brice Marden. The San Francisco sculptor Vincent Fecteau is also among the gallery’s artists.

More by Charles Desmarais

“It’s always difficult to say” whether there is a market for high-value art in a community like the Bay Area, Rosenfeld said by phone. He plans to ask galleries around the world to partner on exhibitions. “I was with Matthew for 15 years — it was a gallery that never worked quickly.

“I want to take the time for things to develop, to work with the new generation that has just begun to emerge in San Francisco. There’s a shift, and things are expanding, if not in this super-accelerated way.” He later added, by email, “I have many existing clients here with whom I have been doing business a long time and there is definitely plenty of demand for great art.”

An unconventional design by architect Thomas Ryan is meant to stoke the slow burn. “When you walk into the gallery, you will walk into a library,” Rosenfeld said, “a warm and welcoming” space lined with walnut shelves containing books on collecting, collectors and “esoteric collections.” There will also be a “cantina ... a stone-covered plywood bar where 15 people can just hang out” in a hallway near the exhibition space. An early 2017 opening is planned.

New chief for Hockney Foundation: If you think you loved the David Hockney exhibition at the de Young Museum in late 2013, consider its effect on the local co-curator of the show, Richard Benefield. Benefield has served in several key roles at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (the de Young umbrella institution) in his four years there, including two stints as acting director. Now it has been announced he will begin a new job in January — as executive director of the David Hockney Foundation.

“I’m over the moon,” he said by phone.

Benefield was the first director of San Francisco’s Walt Disney Family Museum, a position he held from 2008 to 2011. Earlier, he held administrative positions at the art museums of Brown University, the Rhode Island School of Design and Harvard University. He and his husband, John Kunowski, will move to Los Angeles, where the foundation is headquartered and where Hockney lives.

In 2014, the David Hockney Foundation reported assets — primarily works of art — valued at more than $136 million. The purpose of the foundation, Benefield said, is “to further educate the public on arts and culture.” It does this primarily through support of Hockney projects — he has four major exhibitions scheduled in the coming year, as he turns 80. A new book, “A History of Pictures: From the Cave to the Computer,” written with British art critic Martin Gayford, came out last Thursday, Oct. 6.

The Independent newspaper reported that in 2012, Hockney was “the most generous philanthropist” in Britain. As it has been in the past, San Francisco will likely again be a beneficiary of that largesse: On Oct. 4, the acquisitions committee of the Fine Arts Museums voted to recommend that the full board accept a gift from the foundation of two multi-screen video works, “Seven Yorkshire Landscapes, 2011” (which has been on view in the de Young lobby since the show in 2013) and “The Four Seasons, Woldgate Woods (Spring 2011, Summer 2010, Autumn 2010, Winter 2010).”

Photo: Catherine Bigelow, Special To The Chronicle

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Fine Arts Museums Deputy Director Richard Benefield (at left) with artist David Hockney and FAM Board President Dede Wilsey at the de Young Museum, Oct. 2013.

Fine Arts Museums Deputy Director Richard Benefield (at left) with artist David Hockney and FAM Board President Dede Wilsey at the de Young Museum, Oct. 2013.

Richard Benefield and his husband, John Kunowski, at a fundraising event in 2013.

Richard Benefield and his husband, John Kunowski, at a fundraising event in 2013.

Photo: Drew Altizer Photography

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Eric Martin’s “Gap Fire Pyrocumulous From the Hap
py Camp Scar” is at a new gallery in Oakland.

Eric Martin’s “Gap Fire Pyrocumulous From the Hap
py Camp Scar” is at a new gallery in Oakland.

Photo: Gallery 2301

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Adrian Rosenfeld stands for a portrait in his gallery, which is under construction in the Dogpatch neighborhood in San Francisco.

Adrian Rosenfeld stands for a portrait in his gallery, which is under construction in the Dogpatch neighborhood in San Francisco.

Photo: Gabrielle Lurie, The Chronicle

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Adrian Rosenfeld, former director of the Matthew Marks Gallery is reflected in the window outside his new gallery, which is under construction in San Francisco’s Dogpatch neighborhood.

Adrian Rosenfeld, former director of the Matthew Marks Gallery is reflected in the window outside his new gallery, which is under construction in San Francisco’s Dogpatch neighborhood.

Photo: Gabrielle Lurie, The Chronicle

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A rendering of the library entrance to Adrian Rosenfeld, a new gallery to open early 2017.

A rendering of the library entrance to Adrian Rosenfeld, a new gallery to open early 2017.

Photo: Courtesy T.W. Ryan Architecture

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Adrian Rosenfeld, above, former director of the Matthew Marks Gallery, plans to open a gallery, shown in a rendering with art by Wyatt Kahn, left, in San Francisco’s Dogpatch neighborhood in early 2017.

Adrian Rosenfeld, above, former director of the Matthew Marks Gallery, plans to open a gallery, shown in a rendering with art by Wyatt Kahn, left, in San Francisco’s Dogpatch neighborhood in early 2017.

Photo: Gabrielle Lurie, The Chronicle

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A rendering of the Adrian Rosenfeld gallery with a painting by Wyatt Kahn, which is scheduled to open in San Francisco at 1150 25th St. in 2017.

A rendering of the Adrian Rosenfeld gallery with a painting by Wyatt Kahn, which is scheduled to open in San Francisco at 1150 25th St. in 2017.

Photo: Photo Courtesy T.W. Ryan Architecture, Painting By Wyatt Kahn

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Adrian Rosenfeld, ex-Matthew Marks director, to open SF gallery

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A literate Oakland addition: Another new effort, though at the tiny scale of 400 square feet, is Gallery 2301. It will open Thursday, Oct. 13, at 2301 Telegraph Ave. in Oakland, directly across the street from Johansson Projects — ground zero of the lively Oakland gallery scene. It is being launched by Timothy Don, co-founder of the Oakland Book Festival, who is also art editor of Lapham’s Quarterly.

Don promises “to find and work with intelligent, mid-career Bay Area (especially Oakland-based) artists on deeply curated, one-person shows and to bring to the Bay Area some of the New York and international artists I have developed relationships with through the Quarterly.”

There’s a literary bent to the program, starting with the first show, of work by Oakland artist Eric Martin on the theme of “Wild Fire.” It’s the first of a series built around the four elements of classical philosophy (fire, water, air and earth) and the ancient thinkers who expounded on those topics. A panel on “Heraclitus and the Aesthetics of Fire” on Oct. 27 will feature the artist in conversation with a philosopher and an art historian.

Ruth Braunstein Memorial: A Celebration of Life for pioneer San Francisco art dealer Ruth Braunstein, who died Sept. 6 at the age of 93, will take place Sunday, Oct. 16, 1:00 p.m. at 1275 Minnesota St., S.F.

Last chance: Rena Bransten Gallery’s “Lawrence Ferlinghetti: Censored Tarps” — three large paintings that give a sense of the Beat poet’s visual art practice — closes Saturday, Oct. 15 ... and don’t miss “Matrix 261: Cecilia Edefalk,” at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, which I have called one of the more peculiar and affecting exhibitions of the year, closing Sunday, Oct. 16.

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